ZipRecruiter Review - Ideal Job Marketplace?

ZipRecruiter is an online employment marketplace that uses in-house technology to match businesses with millions of job seekers and their app, their website says, is the “#1 Rated Job Search App.”

The company’s technology and standing as one of the premier online employment sites means that not only do companies and job seekers have access to countless opportunities, but also that the experience of finding a job and hiring people is a fluid, simple process.

A 2018 article from Inc. does a good job of describing the effectiveness of ZipRecruiter’s efforts to use artificial intelligence to match the right job seeker with the right position.

“ZipRecruiter began investing millions of dollars in AI and data research,” contributor Jeremy Goldman wrote. “They shifted their focus from delivering the most candidates to using their new deep learning tools to deliver the right candidate.”

The company is based in Santa Monica, CA, and employs around 1,000 people across two states and three countries. Its four founders – Ian Siegel, Ward Poulos, Will Redd and Joe Edmonds – launched the company in 2010 and, over the past eight years, the company has, according to their website, served more than 1.5 million employers and more than 430 million job applications.

In this review, we’ll analyze how ZipRecruiter works, its pricing and refund policy, its customer reviews and how it compares to other job-search sites.

How ZipRecruiter Works

ZipRecruiter offers services for both job seekers and employers, so let’s take a look at the site from the job seeker’s perspective first.

ZipRecruiter for Job Seekers

To get started on your job search, you’ll have to set up an account with ZipRecruiter online or through their app and upload a resume, although they won’t require a resume for you to create a profile.

Through this profile you can add a photo, your work history, pay requirements and other vital information you think employers should know. Here’s a screenshot of a profile page we created by uploading a resume:

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The more detailed and complete your profile, the better chance you’ll have of ZipRecruiter matching you with the right position.

You’ll also be able to search for open listings based on keyword and city/state, and once you find a job that you’re interested in, you can apply directly or save the listing and apply later.

Meanwhile, ZipRecruiter’s matching technology is finding suitable jobs on your behalf and, when a particular position is posted that fits your profile, ZipRecruiter will send you an invitation to apply.

After you’ve submitted your résumé, ZipRecruiter gives you the ability to see how many employers have viewed your résumé, as well as how many times your application was saved, liked, shared, or considered.

And when you’re not at your computer, or on iOS or Android mobile device, you can create job alerts to notify you when a job matching your criteria has been posted.

Also, ZipRecruiter will send you notifications when a job has closed so that you can move on to other opportunities.

ZipRecruiter for Companies

ZipRecruiter’s proprietary technology analyzes your jobs in real-time in order to maximize your placement across all of their more than 100 job board distribution partners, which includes Google, Facebook, LinkedIn and Monster.

Each of your job postings on ZipRecruiter is mobile-friendly and can include your company’s branding (logo, etc.).

Companies can also add candidate screening questions to their job posts, which help you qualify applicants quicker.

After candidates have answered the questions and submitted their résumé, you can manage your candidates via a user-friendly dashboard. You have the ability to track and rate each applicant.

More importantly, you can give a good candidate a thumbs up. This thumbs-up helps ZipRecruiter’s AI understand the type of candidate for which you are looking and will help it send application invites to the most appropriate candidates.

Also, you can use your dashboard to create custom email responses and export your candidate list to Excel.

On top of all this, ZipRecruiter gives you the ability to search more than 12 million résumés in their résumé database.

ZipRecruiter Pricing & Refund Policy

Job seekers can use ZipRecruiter for free, whereas employers have the option of trying a four-day free trial. After the trial ends, paid accounts begin at $249 for a Simple account and go up from there:

Regardless of which option you choose, all plans come with an unlimited number of candidates who can apply to your postings each month, without any additional charges. To obtain pricing, you must contact the company directly.

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ZipRecruiter’s services come with a 100% satisfaction guarantee, which states that if you’re not happy, you can cancel your account and you’ll be refunded your previous payment (if on a month-to-month plan).

If you’re on a 6 or 12-month plan, you’ll need to cancel within the first 30 days in order to be eligible for a full refund. Otherwise, your account will remain active for the remainder of your term, after which you’ll no longer be billed.

ZipRecruiter emphasizes providing premium support from real people. As such, if you encounter a problem, you can contact the company at (800) 557-9015, via email, or through live chat 24 hours a day.

What Do Other Consumers Have to Say About ZipRecruiter?

To get a sense of how happy people are with their ZipRecruiter experience, we took a look at the company’s ratings on HighYa, Google Play and iTunes.

More than 175 HighYa reviewers give the site an average rating of 1.5 stars, with many recent reviews from employers noting that they received poor results and candidates that didn’t match what they were looking for.

The company’s Job Search app received more than 170,000 reviews in Google Play with an average review of 4.8 stars, which is a fantastic score. Some of the common phrases included in the reviews were “easy to use,” “helpful” and “informative.”

ZipRecruiter’s Job Search app earned equally sparkling reviews in the iTunes store, where more than 175,000 reviewers gave it an average rating of 4.9 stars.

The company also has a sparkling profile on TrustPilot, where more than 5,000 reviewers gave the company an average rating of 9.1 out of 10.

How Zip Recruiter Compares to Other Job Search Sites

One of the best ways to understand how well a service like ZipRecruiter performs is to put it in the context of its competitors. The following table shows the app store metrics of four popular job search services:

ZipRecruiter

Indeed

Monster.com

Glassdoor

iTunes rating

4.9

4.7

4.4

4.7

# of iTunes reviews

175K

538K

3.5K

223K

Google Play rating

4.8

4.3

4.4

4.5

# of Google Play reviews

174K

767K

35K

116K

# of downloads

1 million+

50 million+

1 million+

5 million+

As far as app-store user reviews go, ZipRecruiter is the clear winner here, as it receives the highest ratings in both the iTunes and Google Play stores. Glassdoor garners the second-best ratings followed by Indeed and Monster.com.

These metrics are important to keep in mind mainly because there’s a good chance you’ll conduct a significant part of your job search via the app and you’ll want that experience to be as seamless as possible.

Bottom line: Can ZipRecruiter Help You Find a Job or Fill an Open Position?

Whether you’re a company looking for a new employee, or an individual looking for the perfect employer, almost everything about posting a job and the job-hunting process can be stressful.

ZipRecruiter appears to have a well-earned reputation for effectively helping both employees and employers make the right match and to make the process as simple and as straightforward as possible.

The reviews they earn from users are, for the most part, high, and their app ratings are better than Indeed, Monster.com and Glassdoor, three of the site’s competitors.

Because the site is free, there isn’t much downside for job seekers, as the only up-front cost for you is the time it takes to fill out your profile.

If you think ZipRecruiter is a good fit for you as a job seeker, then take a few minutes to complete a profile with them and then keep an eye on the application invites they send you. There’s a good chance you’ll be happy with them, based on the reviews the company gets.

If you aren’t happy with the results, Indeed, Glassdoor and Monster.com are options you can try out and compare to your ZipRecruiter experience.

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Editor’s Note: It is our understanding that this company has been asking its customers to leave feedback on HighYa. We assure you that each of these reviews has still been subjected to the same verification & vetting process that all submitted reviews go through. Learn More Here

41 out 41 people found this review helpful

Bogus jobs, fake companies, zero legit!

I applied to 13 jobs with 13 different companies (11 jobs are in Detroit, one job in Wyandotte, and one job in Taylor).

Each email I received from employers were identical, except for the hiring person's name. All were requesting that I download Google Hangouts and then add them to my buddy list in order to begin my interview process.

This raised a red flag for me. What normal company hiring manager utilizes Google Hangouts to conduct business? I refused to be lured into this bogus BS.

After the 3rd email I received from another company wanting to hire me (and again asking me to download Google Hangouts and then add them), I was livid that these people are not being weeded out and that scammers are posting fake spam non-existent jobs, all of which are designed to WASTE people's time!

I emailed ZipRecruiter only to be told they do their best to try and verify companies as being legit.

I will immediately remove my resume!

ZipRecruiter is a HUGE fail. They need to STOP with their phony commercials, and they are the biggest scammer out there! They are not helping anyone, but are lining their pocket with companies paying them for a service ONLY to get crap in return.

I AM livid that ZipRecruiter wasted my time and gave me false hope.

Look elsewhere for legit jobs, and save yourself the aggravation, grief, and disappointment.

Lisa, I assume you tried to delete your resume with them and found out that you cannot delete it or your profile. I logged into my account with them and edited my contact information with the wrong information, then I created a blank resume with the same file name I typically use and uploaded it, deleting my old resume so they cannot use my information and cannot falsely send my resume to a gullible client.

Scammers Plenty contacting me about jobs from Zip Recruiter

I have received 3 "work at home" job offers now within two weeks. The first one sounded SO exciting. It was from an artist to be his personal assistant. I filled out a questionnaire. He then replied stating, “Congratulations, you've got the job”.

Then proceeded to tell me he is shipping all kinds of equipment to me and asked what bank I used. I asked him what his website was, and he sent back an e-mail in all caps to me stating, "I am sorry that I told you I was in Puerto Rico and could not meet with you…” and so on, until he closed with, “If you're no longer interested, just tell me no or just don't reply.”

Before, he was going to meet with me when he came back in town next week. After I asked about his website, he sent the last e-mail to me and said he was going to be in Puerto Rico and not be back for three weeks and would not be able to meet with me. As for his second email, I did not respond.

The third one was to be a "work at home" assistant to HR department for MTS. I sent him back an e-mail, asked for his website but never got a reply back. I called MTS and was told that the authorities are investigating this. MTS has received TONS of calls from people, and this is a serious fraud.

Either ZipRecruiter has an extremely poor reputation for vetting companies, or they are a scam agency themselves, or are a front for scammers, like the general "call centers" where people try to get your financial information.

I found a number for ZipRecruiter and tried to call them, but the recording never gave me any option to talk to anyone. Their recording, however, does state they are not a recruiter. In a nutshell, I am now among those on the "list" of applicants who has a very bad taste for "Zip Recruiter".

Boo ZipRecruiter. Bad Company, Bad Company! Please stop selling yourself as a help to applicants, and from what I see, an asset to employers.

No one seems to have any faith and/or confidence in you. The only "confidence" I see here with ZipRecruiter is that they are running a "confidence" (or a CON) game!

Bogus job reporting

ZipRecruiter has sent me jobs, saying I was on fire, my resume had been reviewed for the third time (with only 7% of the people get reviewed this many times), but when I went on switchboard.com to inquire on these companies, I found out that the companies didn't even exist.

Worse than Craigslist

Basically, every single job they have listed is a scam to either spam your email or is just a phishing scam. Craigslist is more trustworthy. You could send out 50 resumes a day and only hear back from scams.

Unfortunately, they post their crap on sites like LinkedIn, so half the time you apply to jobs on other sites and you get an email from ZipRecruiter, even if you unsubscribed from their emails. They're nothing but fake jobs, now posting on every employment site.

Beware!

Like other folks, I used ZipRecruiter and got nothing but employment scams. I got a couple of identical emails from companies that had Gmail accounts (red flag) and offered to do an interview on Google Hangouts (so red, it's crimson flag).

I received your resume and application for the job posted on www.zip-recruiter.com.I regret to inform you that this position has been occupied, after further scrutiny made on your resume I am pleased to inform you of the available position at the moment.

I'm looking for someone that can be trusted and reliable to work with as my Receptionist/Personal Assistant(PA). This position i am offering is home-based and flexible, working with me is basically about instructions and following them, So i need someone who can be able to meet up with my irregular timings. As my Personal Assistant, your activities among other things will include;

Qualifications: To perform this job successfully, must be able to perform each essential duty satisfactorily.

** Weekly Pay: $700.00

** Hours: 2-5 Hours Weekly

** Days: 2 days Weekly

Primary Responsibilities:

* Creating orders/pick slips/invoices/credit memos.

* Reaching out to Foster homes on my behalf

* Running personal errands.

* supervisions and monitoring my clients while i am away.

* Scheduling programmes, flights and keeping me up to date with them.

Basic wage is $700 Weekly.

I'm sure you'll understand I tend to have a very busy schedule at this point. Please note that this position is not office based,because of my frequent travels and tight schedules, it's a part-time work from home job and the flexibility means that there will be busier weeks than others. I have reviewed your Resume and I think I am impressed with it and would like to give you an immediate trial, so if you are interested kindly get back to me. As I have been checking files and schedules and would need someone urgently to run some tasks for me this week/next week. My Financial Adviser will issue you a Certified Company Check to execute the task with, and complete the assignment. You will need to Purchase gifts and items for the kids(Foster Care) which i will send you a list and description of the items, alongside delivery address when purchased. Note that you are not to use your personal funds.

Kindly CONFIRM your contact details to enable us proceed to next step.

Ziprecruiter is a rip-off

Many, many jobs on there are fake and sound like scams. I believe it is a big lie, a scam, most jobs are not real. Ziprecruiter should be shut down or brought a lawsuit against them. In a word they suck. It doesn't work. So much time wasted all for nothing. I would say beware, beware, beware.

They are a scam

I would like to inform you that I lost the credibility in THIS website due the lack of security and not having a secure way to verify the companies that are looking for employees, giving persons with other intentions many people's data.

A couple of weeks ago I was contacted by a supposed "company" that found my resume on your website and was interested in making an interview with me. The company in question was suppose to be a Norway company called "Bama Gruppen" that was going to open an office in Tampa. Well, they conducted the interview and apparently they liked me and offered me a job. I was happy since I am an immigrant from Brazil going trough a divorce and soon having to be needing to support my son and me since it would be my first job in America. I thought that was the procedure in hiring someone.

I enrolled my son in the HOST program in his school since I had a "job" now, and made all the arrangements needed for a single mother like myself to be able to work.

Long story short, in order for me start to working (from home until they open the office), they would send me a check to buy computer accounting programs, and a new laptop. I thought, "Wow, here in America things are very fast and professional."

They asked me to fill out all my information, including a W4 form, and a USCIS authorization of employment form, and also send them a copy of ALL my documents, including my Social Security Number (which I just received).

In a couple of days I received the check, and as a good professional wanting to show that I was honest, I ran directly to the bank to deposit the check. Getting there was when the "red alerts" started to show up because the tellers started to ask many questions about the check, and I realized that there was something wrong, but the check was still deposited.

After I got out of the bank, I started to google the company name, and I realized that I was a victim of a scam. I got desperate and ran to the FBI to be able to make a formal complaint.

After reading the Google reviews about your website, I realized you guys are a scam and care less about the people, taking advantage of them in their most fragile phase of life.

That is why I'm closing my account and making a formal complaint against your company, and I hope the harassment of sending millions of messages on my phone and email will stop.

Scam artists hire on here

When I was looking for a job, I applied to a few administrative assistant positions on ZipRecruiter. I got both emails and texts in the middle of the night from someone claiming that they are an artist out of the country looking for an admin to help them keep things organized while he is away. He asks you to send him your bank account information and address so that he can send you a laptop and put money in your account before he even interviewed me (this was all in the first e-mail).

I (obviously) blocked this email and phone number. A week later, I received the same exact email from another man except instead of an artist out of the country, he was an architect out of the country. All the other words in the email were the same and asked for the same information. I, again, got a text message from this person in the middle of the night.

ZipRecruiter seems to let anyone post "jobs" to this site. The worst part about these two was that the original postings for the position had nothing to do with anything from the e-mails. I would avoid applying to jobs on here. Seems dangerous.

When I stated to company I would be filing to BBB and a credit card dispute they deleted my account and locked it so I could not have access to it for the credit card company.

We were encouraged to use this service because they offered a 30 day money back guarantee and from other reviews, clearly those reviews are not that valid.

First Ziprecruiter takes your ad and then rounds up your pay so that when potential candidates call you they think they are making more money. For example our pay range was 10.40 to 11.00, a field that was on Ziprecruiters' web site. ALL of the candidates that contacted me when they discussed "pay" told me the job was advertised for $11 per hour. When I attempted to advise them that the job was a range based on skill set I was met with opposition and accusations that I falsely advertised.

As a small business owner everyone knows that the reputation of a company is very important. Now I have about 100 people who think poorly of our company. That is an epic fail.

When I addressed this with Ziprecruiter they state it is a programming flaw and they are not responsible for it.

This alone was a huge waste of resources (time and energy) interviewing candidates who thought the job was offered at $11 per hour.

Next there is a check box that allows you to choose only candidates that "have a resume". This check box was checked on all 3 of my ads. Every job posting sent me half of the candidates without a resume. Yet again another waste of resources. When I addressed this with Ziprecruiter they had no solution for me just an apology.

Thirdly the most important factor is that if when you are creating your ad, at checkout you can upgrade your account to be able to actually look through resumes to choose candidates. With this option you get the service at half off and the service guarantee that if you don't find any qualified candidates within 30 days they will refund your money.

I canceled my account 3 days prior to this service guarantee and contacted them by their preferred method of contact "online inquiry" which they state I needed to call to get the refund.

The customer service reps are clearly reading from scripts and do not know how to answer questions that are outside their scripts.

When you call you get a recording half of the time that says they are unable to take your call and that they will call you back, which of 3 messages left they did not do.

The quality of the ads they repost for you are also poor. Several candidates showed me copies of the printed job postings from the 100 plus sites they post to and basically they take the very nicely formatted ad you place and shove it all into one paragraph. This is very poor advertising and makes your company look bad as well.

I would avoid this company and post the ads yourself, save yourself the headache.

I am filing a dispute with the BBB and my credit card company for the misrepresentation and blatant disregard for their service guarantee.

Scams all day

It seems like a good idea but it's just a way for scammers to take advantage of desperate people. I had someone copy information from a legitimate company and send it to me in an email that claimed to be confidential from the hiring manager.

They sent me a cashier's check and told me to immediately deposit it into an ATM and to keep them updated on the progress of the deposit.

They also want the deposit receipt. Well, my mom didn't raise a fool and society has made me believe if it's too good to be true it usually is.

Needless to say, I blocked the users, because there were many claiming to be legit companies, and am trying to find a way to report it. I contacted ZipRecruiter but do not plan on hearing from them.